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Definitive Best *Free* Antivirus 2012

Asked by goretsky,

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Favorite Free AV  

457 members have voted

  1. 1. Your Choice?

    • Alwil Avast! Free
      69
    • AVG AntiVirus Free
      20
    • Beijing Rising Free Anti Virus
      1
    • ClamWin/ClamAV
      1
    • Comodo Anti Virus/Internet Security
      12
    • Emsisoft Anti-Malware (free edition)
      2
    • MalwareBytes Anti Malware (free edition)
      10
    • Microsoft Security Essentials
      312
    • Panda Cloud Antivirus
      6
    • PC Tools (Symantec) Anti Virus Free Edition/ThreatFire
      1
    • Other (please specify)
      23

Question

Grand Master

goretsky Supervisor

Posted
  • Supervisor
Posted

Hello,

In the preceding Definitive Best Antivirus 2011 message thread, there were requests to seperate the commercial and free antivirus products. For 2012, I have created two separate polls. This is the poll for the free antivirus programs. For commecial (paid-for) antivirus, please see the Definitive Best *Paid* Antivirus 2012 message thread.

Questions or comments? Post them here in the message thread.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

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Grand Master

AJerman

Posted
Posted
LOL. I hate that one. On the real I hate cleaning it.

Haha, I remember the first time I encountered the whole "Antivirus XP 2005" or whatever it was when it started. Was quite the bitch to remove. All the normal methods of doing things were blocked. Took me a few hours to figure out how to entirely remove it. Helped teach me a lot of better methods to remove stuff like that though.

guys out of a the free ones what ones also protects against spam.

Not sure, but most mail clients have that built in. It's not a really an AV task, not really sure why it ever was.

  • 0
Grand Master

SnoopZ

Posted
Posted

avast 7 version is good but the bad news it is not fully compatible with comodo firewall.

More info about the bug

http://forum.avast.c...p?topic=93953.0

Serious problem this is as it seems a Windows 7 system running Avast 7 with either Windows Firewall, Comodo or Privatefirewall is at a security risk because any blocked applications blocked using those Firewalls are not blocked at all unless Avast 7 Webshield is disabled.

To make matters worse they seem to be blaming each other, so i have unistalled Avast 7 for now.

  • 0
Grand Master

Copernic Reporter

Posted
  • Reporter
Posted
UnThreat Free Antivirus 2012. I've had great results with it, I have rarely ever had a virus that it can't handle. My computer runs much faster with UnThreat Antivirus - used Avira Free for a couple of years but like all the good apps, it turned into a sort of bloatware at a certain point.
  • 0
Experienced

mujjuman

Posted
Posted

Microsoft Security Essentials all the way.

The question on my lips at this moment is do we need threads like this year in year out, why not just have a definitive thread for antivirus products?

I'm surprised Microsoft is getting such high numbers. I used AVG last year and I thought it was ok. It was better 2 years ago but last year it just slowed my computer.

I like it when they make new threads. It gives everything a fresh start, and some products are not as favored anymore.

[EDIT]

Okay guys I just downloaded MSE using your recommendation... otherwise i would have gone with avast or AVG. I use comodo as my firewall, so I probably would have leaned towards AVG. Let me give MSE a shot.

  • 0
Grand Master

LOC Veteran

Posted
  • Veteran
Posted

I've been using Webroot's SecureAnywhere 2012 for a couple of weeks now. Amazing product. It uses like, no resources while running. It scans incredibly fast (especially the 2nd scan) and they get away with this because most of the app etc is in the "cloud" and it works!

It's a fairly expensive product, and I was weary of spending that kind of money on it. But when I saw it was on sale at an online retailer I sometimes use, I couldn't resist.

Highly recommended product. I suggest also trying out the trial at the very least.

  • 0
Mentor

Ently

Posted
Posted

How do you know it does the job well?

Well I downloaded Avast which I have heard is considered good and it didn't pick up anything either. I dunno I guess I just trust Microsoft, if I ever download a file which I think might be a virus it will always pick it up.

I guess no one virus checker is the be end all they all have their flaws but I just find a lot of the other virus checkers slow my system down. To be honest I haven't run benchmarks on that but it's just the feel I get from my machine so yeah I think MSE is the one for me :)

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